People claiming to be full in tiny calorie amounts

I'm not saying drugs and stuff can't reduce your metabolism significantly (although honestly I can't imagine it can reduce it to the extent that you gain weight on 500 calories a day - if we could get by on so little why didn't we evolve that trait given how advantageous it would be to be so metabolically efficient - I guess if your body literally refused to use energy from food it could store that energy as fat, but then where did it get its energy from? you need some to live).

Nor am I saying people with eating disorders aren't going to have issues consuming larger amounts of food.

But I don't think I am the only person who has come on these forums, read all the posts about how little people are eating and thought, "why can't I eat that little? am I doomed to be a bloated whale for life" or even tried to eat so little only to binge after a couple of months (and for a couple of months) and end up fatter than they were before.

I am fatter than the first time I came to this site precisely because I tried to compete with some of the calorie levels I was seeing and thinking I was being a pig eating more than that because "if they can do it I must be able to". That sets a lot of people up for failure, I can't believe I am the only one...

I'm not saying drugs and stuff can't reduce your metabolism significantly (although honestly I can't imagine it can reduce it to the extent that you gain weight on 500 calories a day - if we could get by on so little why didn't we evolve that trait given how advantageous it would be to be so metabolically efficient - I guess if your body literally refused to use energy from food it could store that energy as fat, but then where did it get its energy from? you need some to live).

Nor am I saying people with eating disorders aren't going to have issues consuming larger amounts of food.

But I don't think I am the only person who has come on these forums, read all the posts about how little people are eating and thought, "why can't I eat that little? am I doomed to be a bloated whale for life" or even tried to eat so little only to binge after a couple of months (and for a couple of months) and end up fatter than they were before.

I am fatter than the first time I came to this site precisely because I tried to compete with some of the calorie levels I was seeing and thinking I was being a pig eating more than that because "if they can do it I must be able to". That sets a lot of people up for failure, I can't believe I am the only one...

Exactly. People eating less than you are making you feel bad?? Their diet is not about you! Your diet is not about them! Just remember this, and you'll be a lot happier.

I stay full on small amounts bc I have lived that way forever. When I went to college and started to gain and eat/drink a lot, it would hurt my stomach and when I tried to go back down to small calories I was hungry all the time. Now I'm pretty used to it again (I kinda like being hungry).

I really think it depends on each person and your lifestyle

I will say that those posts are irritating, if you're full... Cool. No need to announce to everyone. No one is impressed with your low intake, haha. Sounds harsh but it's honest!

I *can* be perfectly satisfied, hunger-wise on 1000 calories. I choose not to be because I know it isn't good for me and I like to have more taste and variety in my diet and know I can lose on much higher.

I think a lot of people are actually used to not eating a lot, volume wise, and instead have gotten where they are by eating very highly calorie dense foods, even in small amounts. Someone who only eats a couple of small meals a day but those meals are in the thousands of calories can gain weight the same as someone who is able to get their money's worth at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

So when someone who got overweight eating 4000 calories a day in,for example, fries, cheese, ranch sauce and deep fried chicken (a combo with which you could reach 4000 in quite a small volume of food) then decides to eat "healthy" they go to the opposite extreme, cut fats, cut carbs, go nuts on the veg and all of a sudden there is a higher volume of food in their gut than they have even been used to, but at a very low calorie expenditure.

I can really see how it happens, and I don't think it's a lie (most of the time). It's important to remember not everyone got overweight from eating a crazy amount of FOOD, many got here by eating too many calories which didn't actually equate to a huge amount of food.

I find it extremely hard to ever eat 1200cals or even reach 1000, though I have been doing a good job lately - I have to force myself to.

I'm not lying and never would. I'm also on steroids for panhypopituitarism (my pituitary is shot from a brain tumor - I produce absolutely no cortisol and no hormones whatsoever), coumadin (blood thinner), synthroid (because my thyroid, while healthy, doesn't respond to hormones since they don't exist), klonopin, sodium bicarb for tubular acidosis, and topamax for seizures. I happen to also have had anorexia nervosa a few years back, so that ghost is always with me.

I'm almost 1,71cm (5'7"?) and I weigh right now about 56kg, but until two weeks ago, in hospital for an adrenal crisis - I was almost 70kg from the IV corticosteroids and still couldn't eat more than 600cals and had to be fed by tube, with doc's threats and everything, i just couldn't eat, everything went up - it got dangerous so they put the tube in. Some things you just can't control. I've done damage to my body in years of ED and other illness and things I couldn't control, if you don't produce cortisol and you're always underweight from it (because no cortisol means extremely low blood pressure and blood sugar, vomiting up everything you eat from extreme nausea, extreme fatigue, extreme abdominal pain, collapse, etc) and you're a dancer and you can't stomach food - any food - because it makes you sick, how do you even BEGIN to try and eat, even consciously knowing you have to? And when you gain a lot of weight from finally being diagnosed and getting better, and you have to lose it to go back to your normal, healthy weight, and you gain it out of nowhere but you STILL can't magically make your stomach any larger to accommodate larger amounts of food or your brain any more wired to process the signals that a normal person gets in relation to hormones and hunger signals, then what? What do you do? Other than hope that somehow someday some doc is going to figure out the right concoction and you're going to be a normal human able to eat?

Am I lying when I state I honestly find it hard to go past 800-1000 cals? Sometimes I have to force feed myself. Sometimes I have to get my boyfriend to do it for me. My endocrinologist and my hematologist both have links to this diary here on MFP because I gave it to them for supervision and they were interested. And I do love food, I honestly love it. What I hate is how it makes me feel afterwards - tired, nauseus, sick, crying, in pain sometimes, it's hell.

And you know the funny thing, I am not fat now, but in a year or two if I keep having adrenal crisis, no matter how much restriction, if they up my hydrocortisone enough or switch me to prednisone, I might as well become fat or overweight and there will be very little I will be able to do about it because the steroids have very specific side effects that I won't be able to control. And I have to replace this for the rest of my life because my pituitary is 100% shot.
That scares the **** out of me but then again, I'd rather be alive than fit.

Don't assume things about people because frankly you don't know their medical history and their struggles. I don't understand why anyone would lie about anything, especially on forums where people go to support each other through journeys that are often painful. But maybe I'm just naive.

This happens to a lot of people when they first begin tracking calories, and there are a number of different reasons for it:

1. They don't track accurately. They are way underestimating the calories they're eating, and are astonished that the feel full on so little, when really it's not so little at all.

Another thing that can happen is that someone can get fat eating very calorie dense foods, so they never actually ate a huge volume of food, but the high calorie density of those foods still put them in a surplus and they gained weight... then they go on a diet and that includes switching to eating healthy... well the same volume of food that they're used to, if they switch to low calorie density, high protein/high fibre/low fat/low carb foods then that volume of food probably will only add up to 1000 calories if that... quite a lot of people when switching to eating healthy, calorie controlled balanced diets do end up eating a greater volume of food, because the calorie density is much lower.

This happens to a lot of people when they first begin tracking calories, and there are a number of different reasons for it:

1. They don't track accurately. They are way underestimating the calories they're eating, and are astonished that the feel full on so little, when really it's not so little at all.

2. They're suddenly eating all low calorie/high bulk foods like salad and veggies and super lean meats so they're getting far fewer calories for the same volume that they're used to eating when it was all burgers and pizza, and they're astonished at how full they feel after eating so few calories when the reason is that they've just eaten 5 large salads and a chicken breast.

3. By eating these healthy foods, they aren't sending their blood sugar on a roller coaster, so they aren't spending half the day crashing, and they're astonished at how little it takes to stay on an even keel when it's all more nutritious, lower-GI foods.

4. They're paying attention to the point that they're hyper-aware of their body's signals, including satiety, and they're not mindlessly shoveling food in their mouths like they usually do, and they're astonished at how few calories it actually takes to not feel like they're starving when they pay attention and eat proper foods and only when they're hungry.

But regardless of the reasons, I agree it's super annoying. The only thing I find more annoying is the "We're all different" crowd. Apparently each of us is a unique snowflake with our very own unique set of laws for thermodynamics, chemistry and biology. Our bodies work in such wildly divergent ways that it's pointless to even look at things like studies, or give advice which has worked for large populations of humans. Because we're all different. What works for you cannot possibly work for me. Harrumph!